Rostering software for function centres
The roster follows the bookings. A hundred people on Saturday and nothing on Tuesday, a casual pool far larger than the shifts on offer, and nights that finish long after the last guest.
| Who | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sofia D.Supervisor | off | 4–11 | 3–12 | 12–1 | 10–6 | off |
| Lucas P.Bar | off | 5–11 | 5–12 | 4–1 | 11–6 | off |
| Hana Y.Wait | off | 5–11 | off | 4–1 | 11–6 | off |
| Kirra D.Wait | off | off | 5–12 | 4–1 | off | off |
| Sam T.Set up | 9–3 | off | 1–6 | 10–4 | off | 9–2 |
| Marisol D.Kitchen | off | 3–10 | 3–11 | 11–12 | 10–5 | off |
Saturday is a wedding: set up from ten, service from four, pack down to one. Monday is the reset.
What makes a function centre hard to roster
Four things that come up in every one of these weeks, and what happens here instead.
What changes once it is running
What function centres get back, in the terms this trade measures it in.
A week in a function centre
What it is used for in a function centre
Specific things people in this trade do with it, rather than a list of modules.
- Each room set up as its own venue, so two events on one night are two rosters
- A supervisor per room who publishes and approves for their own night
- Pack down shifts that finish after midnight, counted as the hours they take
- A crew built for one event and never rostered again, without cluttering the team
- Set up, service and pack down as three shifts rather than one twelve hour block
- The estimated cost of a night beside the number of guests it was staffed for
Two rooms, one crew, and a pack down that ran past one
A 200 seat room and a 60 seat room, both booked on the same Saturday.
| When | What happens | What you do here |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | The smaller room adds 20 guests. | Two more shifts go on that room’s roster, and the estimate for the night moves with them. |
| Saturday 3pm | Set up starts in both rooms with a shared crew. | Each person is rostered to the room they are actually in, so the totals stay honest. |
| Saturday 10:30pm | The small room finishes. The big room has not. | Three people move across. New shifts, not a note in somebody’s phone. |
| Sunday 1:15am | Pack down finishes. | The clock outs land after one. Every shift crossed midnight and each counts as one shift. |
| Sunday 11am | Four people never clocked out, because at one in the morning nobody does. | They are first on the timesheet, with the rostered finish offered and the reason recorded. |
Two events, one crew across both rooms, and a Sunday morning that took ten minutes.
The jobs that stop being jobs
Where the hours in a week like this go. No stopwatch: the left column is what the work takes without it, and the right is what is left of the same task.
| The job | Usually | Here |
|---|---|---|
| Running two events on one night | One roster, and no idea which room cost what | A venue per room, with the totals kept apart and added up together |
| Moving a crew between rooms mid event | A decision on the floor that nothing records | A shift in the room they moved to, added while it happens |
| A 1am pack down | Clock outs nobody did and hours somebody guesses at | Missed clock outs flagged first, fixed with a reason attached |
| Staffing to a guest number | A rule of thumb and a look at last year | Shifts added against the night, with the cost as you add them |
What the record shows, and what stays yours
Roster Flow keeps the record. Meeting the obligation is still the workplace's job, and these are the parts of it nothing here decides for you.
- Which room each shift belonged to, on a night with more than one event
- Shifts crossing midnight, counted once and not split at twelve
- Missed clock outs and the fix applied to each, with its reason
- Who supervised and approved each event’s hours
- The estimated cost of a night beside the hours actually worked
- Penalty rates after midnight and on a Sunday, which payroll applies
- Minimum engagement for a crew called in for four hours
- Anything the client contract says about staffing levels
- Whether a pack down that ran an hour over is approved as worked
What has to be kept, and for how long, is set out by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Nothing here interprets an award or certifies that a workplace complies with one.
Who is usually on the team
A small permanent team and a long casual list, drawn on per event, with supervisors who run a room.
What drives the wage cost
Late nights and weekends at the loadings you set. Because a function is staffed as a block, the day total on the estimate is the number worth checking before the booking is confirmed.
Questions people in function centres ask
Can we roster two rooms at once?
Yes. Each room can be a venue with its own roster and its own clock in radius, and staff can be assigned to more than one.
How do casuals get their shifts?
Publishing sends the shift to their phone and unlocks clock in for it. A reminder goes out before each shift at the interval you set.
Somebody worked who was not rostered. What happens?
They can still clock in. It is marked as unrostered and waits for a manager to approve, so a last-minute extra pair of hands is not a hole in the record.
The headcount is different every week. Can I roster to the booking rather than to a pattern?
Start from last week so the shape is there, then add or take out the shifts the booking needs. The estimate moves as you go, so a hundred and twenty covers is a wage figure before it is a roster.
Pack down runs past midnight. Does that count properly?
A shift that starts at 5pm and finishes at 1am is one shift of eight hours rather than two days, and somebody clocking out at ten past one is doing exactly that rather than appearing to work a day and a half.
Half the casual list is new every season. How much admin is that?
Adding somebody is an invitation, or an import from Xero so the names already match payroll. They keep their own availability from then on, and deactivating a casual who has moved on stops them counting towards your plan that day.